Pricing on Microsoft’s enterprise products is set to increase with Office 2013. As of December 1 (i.e. tomorrow / today, depending on your time zone), Visio 2013, SharePoint 2013 and Lync 2013 client-access licenses are going up.

The idea behind the price increase is to convince businesses to move away from the older on-premise model to cloud-based products. While these products are going up in price, Office 365 subscriptions are going down.

Here’s where it gets a little bit wacky, folks. Rich Gibbons, Software Manager at European VAR Bechtle, claims that Lync Server 2013’s pricing could increase by – take a deep breath here – 400%. Time is of the essence; if you’d like to buy 2013 enterprise software, pay now and get a Software Assurance guarantee. Gibbons indicates it’ll save you the price hike.

Another suggestion that’ll save even more money is to weigh up whether you need the upgrade or not. For most businesses, 2010 should be doing just fine. If there’s a reason to upgrade you shouldn’t hesitate. Do it now.